Bat Dragon Crazy Polka

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The band struck up crooked as a bat’s grin, clarinet squealing like it had just discovered fire and decided to argue with it. The bass thumped in a lurching two-step, not quite sober, not quite falling over, while the accordion wheezed and laughed, bellows snapping open like a chest full of startled birds. Somewhere above the dance floor—if you could call spinning ice, clouds, and upside-down mountains a floor—a dragon flapped in time, leathery wings slapping the air like a bartender demanding last call.

This was not a polite polka. This was a bat-dragon polka, nocturnal and ecstatic, the kind that sneaks in through the window at midnight and rearranges the furniture of your soul. The fiddle cut loose, sawing joy into splinters, and the dancers followed, boots skidding, hats flying, elbows out. Gravity had given up. North and south had swapped coats. The tune zigzagged like a drunk uncle telling the truth by accident.

The dragon laughed smoke. Its tail curled into treble clefs, its scales clinked like coins in a wedding cup. Each breath it took bent the melody sharper, faster, until the clarinet had to chase it, climbing higher, shrieking with delight, refusing to land. The rhythm stumbled forward, tripped, bowed, and kept going, because that’s what you do when the music grabs you by the collar and says, “Dance, even if the world is upside down.”

Someone shouted “Hey!” on the off-beat. Someone else answered with a stomp that cracked the ice and released a puff of cloud. The accordion leaned into a minor key so sweet it hurt, then snapped back into mischief, a wink and a shove. You could feel it in your teeth, that joy-panic, that laughter right before tears, the old-country madness polished bright and sent spinning into the night.

By the final chorus, the dragon folded its wings around the band, a living roof of rhythm, and the tune went wild—faster, faster—until nobody knew where the melody ended and the dancing began. When it stopped, suddenly, impossibly, the silence rang like a cymbal struck in heaven.

Everyone stood there grinning, breathless, a little upside down forever.

And somewhere in the clouds, a bat laughed and asked for another tune.